Maryland Governor Signs New Congressional Map into Law after Dem Alternative Tossed for ‘Extreme’ Gerrymandering

Maryland’s Republican governor Larry Hogan signed a new congressional map into law Monday, a little more than a week after a previous map drawn by Democrats was tossed out by a judge who called it an “extreme gerrymander” designed to suppress Republican voters.

Democrats in the Maryland legislature redrew the map in the wake of Anne Arundel County Senior Judge Lynne A. Battaglia’s ruling on March 25. Hogan agreed to sign it into law after Democrats, through the attorney general’s office, agreed to drop their appeal of the ruling.

Speaking to reporters, Hogan called it a “tremendous victory for democracy and for free and fair elections in Maryland.” The new map, redrawn by Democrats, isn’t as good as a map proposed by a citizen commission Hogan appointed, but still is “a huge improvement,” he said.

When Battaglia blocked Maryland’s map, it was the first time this redistricting cycle that a map drawn by a Democratic-controlled legislature was rejected in court, according to the New York Times. Last week, a judge in New York tossed that state’s congressional map, accusing Democrats of drawing it with political bias. Courts have also blocked Republican-drawn maps, including in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.

“I think gerrymandering is a cancer on our democracy – regardless of which party does it,” Hogan said. “A number of maps have been thrown out in other states around the country, Republican maps. This is the first time in the United States that a set of Democratic maps have been thrown out for the same reasons.”

Maryland is currently represented in Congress by seven Democrats and one Republican. The map that Democrats initially drew would have created seven safe Democratic districts and made the lone Republican district more competitive for Democrats. Under the new map signed by Hogan, Democrats will be favored in six districts, Republicans will be favored in one, and an eighth district is expected to be competitive.

In her 94-page ruling last month, Battaglia wrote that the evidence presented by experts “yields the conclusion that the 2021 Congressional Plan in Maryland is an ‘outlier,’ an extreme gerrymander that subordinates constitutional criteria to political considerations.”

The Democrat-drawn congressional map, she wrote, was marked by “quite non-compact” districts that fracture counties, and it failed to give “due regard” to “the boundaries of political subdivisions.” Battaglia wrote that the plaintiffs “proved that the 2021 Plan was drawn with ‘partisanship as a predominant intent, to the exclusion of traditional redistricting criteria,’” and that it was “accomplished by the party in power, to suppress the voices of Republican voters.”

Critics had called Maryland’s 2010 congressional map the most gerrymandered in the nation. In 2019, the Washington Post called Maryland’s third congressional district “the nation’s most bizarrely gerrymandered district.”